“If this ceremony was anything like the others,” Ah-Puch said, “the claiming happened before the ax came down on them.” He pounded his fist into his hand to illustrate.
My dad’s dark penetrating eyes never left Ixtab, who had made her way to the opposite side of the court. “It’s time for us to depart.”
I was getting pretty sick of the gods waltzing in and out of scenes like they owned everything and everyone. I mean, they sort of did, but whatever!
“See you tomorrow,” Ah-Puch said with a forced glare. As soon as my dad’s back was turned, he whispered, “I don’t even want to go. The other gods are so boring!”
Then they both vanished in a circle of thick smoke.
When the air cleared, the Sparkstriker was standing right in front of me. I startled, clutching my chest. “You scared me to death!” I squeaked.
“Apparently not,” she said, looking exhausted. “It’s quite wearisome to work on so many. Quite wearisome. And where were you, Storm Runner? I expected you to be present.”
A man’s voice honked over a loudspeaker: “Report to your tree houses immediately. Lights out in fifteen minutes. The gods have graciously granted you a day of rest.” He mumbled, “As if being pounded with lightning is hard. Mm-hmm.”
“Why did you—” I started before the announcements continued.
“Training will begin as soon as the sobrenaturales arrive. In the meantime, no skulking, sneaking, loitering, yelling, complaining, or using any sort of unauthorized powers. I repeat: No using unauthorized powers.”
The godborns began to file out slowly. I watched Alana and Adrik get shakily to their feet.
The Sparkstriker drew my attention back to her. “I’m going home to the Old World now. Tell the gods to lose my number.”
“Hang on,” I said. “What did you say to Ixtab? Why’d she just run off without even a good-bye to the twins?”
The Sparkstriker’s eyes whirled and the bells jingled annoyingly when she shook her head. She leaned closer, and I got a whiff of mulch. “Seems that one of them has greater powers than the other. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
The ground opened at my feet, forcing me to jump back. In the hole, I saw a set of stairs going down. The Sparkstriker swept her red shawl behind her with a dramatic swoosh before she descended into the dusty dark. The electric pool on the court vanished instantly.
Then the ground closed up behind her, leaving just the words resonating in my skull. One of them has greater powers.
I had a sick feeling that Ixtab would soon be playing favorites.
I spotted Rosie at the far end of the court and my heart did a little leap. “Rosie!” I shouted, but there must have been too much commotion for her to hear me.
Ixtab stood at her side, stroking her neck like she was her dog!
Yeah, I know I sound kind of possessive, but Ixtab is the one who turned Rosie into a hellhound and trained her in Xib’alb’a. That always made me worry that the queen thought she had some kind of ownership papers or something.
“Hey!” I shouted, heading over with Fuego. Alana and Adrik called out to me, but I gave them a hold-up sign, never taking my eyes off my dog. With every step, I kept replaying Ixtab’s words in my head: Do you think Rosie misses it here at all? “Here” being the underworld, and no way José was she ever going to take Rosie back!
My dog bowed in front of Ixtab. A tiny orb of light floated out of the goddess’s mouth into Rosie’s ear. If I had blinked, I would have missed it.
“Ixtab!” I hollered.
She drew herself up, slowly lifting her cool eyes to meet mine.
If there were an award for the most intimidating goddess, with the most threatening I-can-burn-off-your-face-with-one-look gaze, she would for sure win it. And I don’t care how fashion-y she was—she was muy scary!
In a blink, she vanished in a column of pale-blue smoke like all the other gods.
“It’s Zane!” someone shouted. A few cheers erupted, but so did some curses. I didn’t slow down enough to pay attention.
The announcer’s voice boomed again. “I said no yelling! So pipe down or I will send for an earth spirit to bury you six feet under.”
My entire focus was on Rosie, who bolted toward me with her lips spread in her signature smile. I was greeted with a giant slobbery kiss on the cheek. I loved it when she acted like her old desert dog self, which wasn’t that often.
I hugged her tight, then pulled back to look inside her ear, but all I saw was a giant wad of wax. Whoops—she was overdue for a cleaning. “What did she do to you?” I muttered.
“Zane!”
I jerked to my left. Brooks was running toward me, followed by Ren and Hondo. The girls were in SHIHOM uniforms, but somehow Ren had gotten out of wearing the black sneakers and instead sported her trademark red cowboy boots.
Man, was I happy to see them.
Then others started calling to me—a few godborns headed our way.
Before I could respond, Ren waved her fingers in the air, creating a shadow circle around the three of us and Rosie. Then she twisted the dial on her watch. Everyone outside the border froze.
I was almost afraid to ask. “Ren?”
Rosie let out a little whine. Her normally perky ears went flat.
Bouncing on her toes, Ren said, “My mom showed me how to stop time. So cool, right? But for now I can only do it for, like, five minutes.” She pressed her lips into a thin, worried line. I got what she was feeling. As awesome as that gift sounded, it also seemed like a scary responsibility.
“Great. We don’t need all those ears listening to us.” Brooks gestured to the motionless crowd.
Folding his arms across his chest, Hondo said, “Something is off, Zane. The ceremony—”
“Everyone got pounded with lightning,” Ren interrupted. “Even me. Sooo weird. I think I traveled to Saturn, but that’s not the point.”
I was about to ask What is the point? when Brooks said, “Akan’s been killed.” That opened the floodgates. The three of them started talking over each other, telling me all the stuff I already knew.
“Why don’t you look shocked?” Brooks inched closer, eyeing me like she could see my secret before I even spilled it.
“Hurakan came to visit.” I recounted everything that had happened, including my field trip to the underworld. I figured I could spill the beans now that Ixtab had claimed Alana and Adrik. Then I wondered, was that why she had walked away from them without saying good-bye? Because she gave one of her kids more power than the other? Could she really be that messed up? The terrible answer was YES!
Hondo leaned toward me and sniffed. “Why do you smell like popcorn?”
“Ah-Puch came, too—and brought a snack.”
“Where is he now?” Ren asked.
“He’ll be back tomorrow,” I assured her as more questions ricocheted across my mind.
But my biggest question was practically burning a hole in my mouth. I turned back to my uncle. “How’d you end up with Adrik’s stone in your boot?”
“He gave it to me,” Hondo said matter-of-factly.
“What? Why? He was guarding it with his life,” I protested. “Why would he just hand it over?”
“Adrik knew Zotz had come for the stone,” Hondo said, “and the dude freaked, said he couldn’t hand it over to the bat no matter what.”
“I don’t get it.” I tapped Fuego on the ground, thinking. “Alana made it sound like the stone didn’t have much power.”
“Obviously not true,” Brooks said with a dramatic eye roll.
Rosie sniffed Ren’s watch and let out a stuttering grunt. I got the feeling she didn’t like the whole stopping-time thing. Ren patted Rosie reassuringly.
Hondo threw up his hands. “Look, I didn’t have time to ask Adrik why the rock matters so much. We were drowning in sludge, remember? If the dude hadn’t been so desperate, I doubt he would have given it away.”
“If it was so important, why did you toss it away?” I asked.
Brooks sighed. “Yeah, sorry about my fumble, Hondo. I almost had the stone. I mean, it was right in my claw-tips.”
“No worries, Capitán. It was a total Hail Mary,” Hondo said with a small shrug. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t find the thing.”
Frowning, Ren said, “I feel terrible that I zoned out and couldn’t help you guys. Brooks told me that Adrik splashed me with that black water—it must have eaten up my powers, too. Even my Mexica ones!”
“If it could do that to your magic, it should have destroyed Hondo.” Brooks twisted a curl around her finger and studied him suspiciously. “So why didn’t it?”
I looked at my uncle, remembering how he had been covered in sludge, and how he had dived into the stuff like it was nothing, like he wasn’t terrified of it sucking his bones through his nose. What was he hiding?
He scanned each of our faces, even Rosie, who was now sitting with her ears perked, like she wanted an answer, too. My uncle raised his hands defensively and with a guilty laugh said, “Maybe I’m just that tough.”
Here’s the thing about Hondo. He’s the world’s worst liar. Like, worse than me. And let me tell you, he was 100 percent lying through his teeth. But why?
Ren smiled gently. “You can tell us, Hondo. Really.”
“Yeah, Hondo.” Brooks crossed her arms. “Tell us. Really.”
“It’s a loooong story,” he said, turning his face to me so I could see his barely raised eyebrow, which in bro-speak meant, I can’t tell you in front of them, but I will later. Promise. Help me!
“Well, I want to hear it,” Brooks said.
“Me too,” Ren added. “But you have to tell it fast, because we’re running out of time.”
“Hang on!” I shouted a little too zealously as I changed the subject. “I forgot to tell you: Ixtab gave one of the twins greater powers than the other one.”
“Oh man.” Hondo groaned. “That bites.”
Ren’s face fell. “There’s no justice in this world.”
I shrugged, and Brooks gave me a knowing I’m-onto-you expression: twisted mouth and flashing amber eyes.
“And Hurakan still thinks war is coming,” I threw out. “But I doubt Zotz and Ixkik’ would be that obvious. I think there’s a worse plan and we’re being lured into some kind of trap.” I told them about the stone-spitting goddess and the other stuff Ah-Puch and Hurakan had shared.
Brooks snapped her fingers. “Guys! There’s an amazing library here. It’s filled with thousands of ancient and sacred texts. I bet we could find some answers about the stone there.”
“Forty-five seconds before time starts up again,” Ren warned.
“It would be easier just to get the twins to tell us the truth,” I said. Given who their mother was, however, they were probably champion secret-keepers and liars.
“You want to interrogate them now?” Brooks asked a little too excitedly.
Ren made a pitiful face and said, “They’ve been through a lot today. Besides, I already asked, and they got all tight-lipped. I think they’re super bummed they lost the stone.”
“Maybe they just need some time to get over it,” Hondo suggested.
Brooks nodded like she was all too familiar with that kind of disappointment. “Let’s meet at the library at dawn. See what we can find.”
I understood Brooks’s logic. If we could figure out the stone’s power, we might be able to predict what Zotz and Ixkik’ were planning to do with it.
Ren’s fingers hovered over the watch’s dial. “Zane, you shouldn’t be here when I start time.”
“Yeah, the crowd’s likely to mob you.” Hondo grinned.
Rosie nudged me with her nose.
Brooks gave me a look of sympathy, which scared me worse than when she gave me a murderous glare.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Hondo pulled a candy bar out of his pocket and held it up. A cartoon of my face was plastered on it. “Seems you’re famous, Storm Runner.”
I had bigger things to worry about than Ixkakaw, goddess of chocolate, putting my face on a candy bar. Like the fact that Hondo was keeping a secret from everyone.
My uncle and I took off before time started up again and I could be mobbed. Whatever. The second we were alone, heading to my tree house, I stopped under the shadows of a gran tree with a canopy so wide you couldn’t see the sky.
“Spit it out,” I said.
Rosie stood at my side, nodding her agreement.
“Spit what out?” he said innocently.
I threw him a talk-or-else expression. “And don’t leave anything out, especially how you survived the sludge.”
He told me I couldn’t write about this, but it’s pretty important to the story, so he’s going to have to deal. Sorry, Hondo.
For the last three months, Hondo and Quinn had been “talking.” As in, they liked each other. Yeah, let that sink in. But Quinn didn’t want anyone to know because (1) Hondo’s a human, and (2) Quinn was on a big undercover operation, aka Zane Obispo’s Demon/Godborn Tour, and she wasn’t supposed to be distracted. Seems that falling in love is a big distraction.
Anyhow, last month Quinn sent Hondo a warrior mask for his birthday. I mean, nothing says love like a warrior mask stolen from your ex’s Casa Grito, right? Apparently, the mask gave the wearer the powers of the warrior who first owned it. And that was how Hondo had been able to dive thirty feet under black ooze to search for a stone barely bigger than a quarter.
Don’t get me wrong—he wasn’t like some newly minted Spider-Man or Aquaman or whatever. But, in extreme situations, the mask gave him a certain edge, and now that Hondo had worn the thing, it belonged to him and only him. And according to my uncle, the warrior had possessed some pretty sick powers, like heightened mind-body control. Apparently, when Hondo put the mask on, all he had to do was focus—“like deep meditation, mind over matter.” There was only one glitch: every time my uncle wore the mask, its powers would be diminished a little. I guess that was the universe’s way of keeping things in balance. Or the gods’ way of keeping all the power for themselves, as usual.
The whole time my uncle was telling me this, I paced alongside Rosie. “So, you can survive, like, anything?”
“No sé. I only used the mask that one time,” he said. “I wasn’t even sure it would work, but I had no other option.”
“That was a pretty big risk.”
With a light shrug, he added, “You can see why I couldn’t tell you in front of Brooks. Quinn doesn’t want anyone to know she gave me the mask.”
My head was spinning from all the information I’d had to process over the last few hours. Maybe that’s why the next question just flew out of my mouth: “Quinn really likes you?”
Hondo let out a light laugh and stood taller. “That’s the part you can’t believe?”
Rosie yelped, then gave Hondo a big toothy grin telling him she totally approved. I guess I did, too.
Scratching my dog’s neck, Hondo said, “Thanks, girl. I knew you’d have my back.”
We continued down the path. “Dude, it’s kinda hard to keep a mask a secret,” I said. “I mean, we saw you wearing it.”
“I know.” Hondo wiped sweat off his brow. “And the mask only has power if a sobrenatural gives it to you. Which means Brooks will catch on, unless…”
I didn’t like the look he was giving me. “Unless what?”
“You want to tell her you stole it.”
“Me?! How did I become the thief in all this?”
“Just help me out, man. Throw your girlfriend off my trail.”
I leaned against Fuego and felt heat rise in my cheeks. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
Hondo clapped my back. “Listen, Diablo. I’m here for you. To give you man-to-man advice, help you figure this out. It’s complicated falling in love the first time.”
I shrugged him off me. “You
’re the guy who’s all lovesick. I…I don’t want to talk about this.” Who said anything about love? Geez.
When we got to the first ladder that led up to the tree houses, Rosie inched back, sniffed the air, and took off into the jungle. I guess it was dinnertime.
“Rosie can’t climb ladders,” I said. “Where’s she supposed to sleep?”
“Uh—she’s got some pretty killer accommodations.”
My hellhound got a better bunk than I did?
As soon as I entered my tree house suite, a flurry of motion sent me tumbling back into Hondo. Six little monkeys dashed up the walls, carrying pillows and toilet paper rolls as they disappeared through the open roof.
“¡Los monitos!” Hondo flew into the house. “Give that back!” He shook his fists at the devious beasts that were now safely back in the trees, howling with laughter.
“With those thieves around,” Hondo said, “you should probably keep everything locked up.”
There wasn’t much left for them to take. I saw an envelope with my name on it on the desk and tore it open. I read it silently as my uncle peered over my shoulder.
7:00 a.m. Breakfast (If you’re late, you starve)
7:30 a.m. Physical Training with Hondo the Horrendous
I eyed my uncle. “Horrendous?”
He flashed a smile. “Gotta keep the kids on their toes. Easier to lighten up than tighten up.”
I did a quick scan of the rest of the schedule (teachers to be determined), which would start the day after tomorrow:
1. The Great Gods (Part 1 of 20)
2. The Art of Magic and Mayhem
3. Sinful Chocolate: From Bean to Bar
I glanced up. “We have to learn about chocolate?”
Hondo’s expression turned serious. “I guess there’s a lot of history and magic in those little cocoa beans. Plus, Ixkakaw threatened to annihilate it all if the gods didn’t offer the course.”
“Man, that’s the best threat I’ve ever heard,” I said. “Don’t do what I want? No chocolate for you for, like, ever.”
I read the last couple of classes.
4. Monsters, Beasts, and Demons
5. The Mystic Universe: Cosmology, Fate, and Time
The Shadow Crosser Page 10
